Adelaide Metro to publish weekly performance data

South Australian public transport users will be able to access weekly performance statistics for Adelaide Metro services from today.

Historically, Adelaide Metro has only published quarterly statistics, and often published them late.

Transport Minister Stephen Mullighan said the change would make the public transport services more accountable.

“Until now it has been common practice to publish statistics quarterly, but by increasing the frequency we are aiming to be more open and accountable to our passengers,” he said.

Advertisement

“This is a good first step for giving people up-to-date information and performance of the public transport system, and over time we would hope that we could provide more detail for each of the modes of transport and service areas.

“The information provided will include the percentage of trains, trams and buses which run on time each week.”

The statistics will give weekly updates on the percentage of buses, trains and trams running on-time.

Train statistics will be further broken down into figures on the Outer Harbour, Seaford, Gawler and Belair train lines, while bus performance statistics will be broken down by operator, showing the respective performance of Southlink (outer south, outer north and hills services), Light City Bus (north-south and outer north east services) and Torrens Transit (east-west services).

Opposition transport spokesperson Corey Wingard told InDaily he had been calling for more frequent public transport performance data since he took on the role.

He said quarterly reporting on public transport performance was sometimes six months late.

“More information for the consumer is a very good thing,” he said.

“I’m very keen on this.

“And I’m glad that the government has heeded my advice.

“I can’t see why this move wasn’t done a whole lot earlier.”

Advertisement

Wingard called on the government to consult with other states and territories about public transport performance standards, which he said were measured inconsistently across the country.

“There’s no uniform measure to compare our on-time running to that of other states,” he said.

“They do it daily in Victoria, which I think it wonderful.”

He said inconsistent signalling systems were reducing the efficiency of Adelaide’s train network.

It achieved an 85.5 per cent on-time running score, while the other lines ran on-time between 91 and 94 per cent of the time.

The definition of an on-time service, according to Adelaide Metro, is no more than four minutes and 59 seconds late for buses and no more than five minutes and 59 seconds late for tram and bus services.

Wingard said the government should look at how it measures on-time performance, but would not commit to changing the definition of ‘on-time’ should the Liberal Party win government.

The latest train, bus and tram service figures, released in February showed each mode of transport performed slightly better in 2014 than in 2013.

Feedback on services can be given Adelaide Metro’s online customer satisfaction survey.

We value local independent journalism. We hope you do too.

InDaily provides valuable, local independent journalism in South Australia. As a news organisation it offers an alternative to The Advertiser, a different voice and a closer look at what is happening in our city and state for free. Any contribution to help fund our work is appreciated. Please click below to become an InDaily supporter.